Does a Long-Term Moving Average Indicator Predict Big Days?
December 13, 2007 - Technical Trading, Volatility Effects
A reader offered the following observation and question: “For many market observers, the 200-day moving average is the point of being in or out of the market. Does being above or below the 200-day moving average make a material difference with respect to missing the the best/worst 10, 20 or 100 days?” To check, we return to the data set for our “Trend Implications of Big Up and Down Days”, which identifies the 40 biggest up days (daily return > 3.50%) and the 40 biggest down days (daily return < -3.09%) for the S&P 500 index during January 1950 through November 2007. Calculating the 200-day moving average (MA) at the close for each day just before these 80 biggest up/down days, we find that: Keep Reading